Doesn’t matter much. @sweatystartup has an awesome list of service industries on his website that will get the job done.
This is a very long thread. @SamtLeslie asked to give the playbook for service companies so here it is. Follow it and you’ll get to 5M+ in a few years.
This is pure operations playbook.
No leadership, financial or HR discussion. Enjoy.
Doesn’t matter much. @sweatystartup has an awesome list of service industries on his website that will get the job done.
If you are under 3M and in multiple trades you’re doing it wrong. I was there and it was a mess.
Businesses under 3M don’t have good system, managers, effective onboarding, training, hiring practices, or pricing methods. If you did then you’d be bigger.
Multiple trades doubles that mess. Get your first business figured out then work on another.
I would recommend earliest 4M to add a second trade, if at all. Any earlier you’re splitting focus and treading water.
Focus Focus Focus.
If you’re using anything besides Servicetitan then please stop and go get Servicetitan. No other software even close to their capabilities.
It is 50% more expensive than other programs on the market while making you 100% better than any competitor not using it.
Radio, billboards, tv and postcards are cool and all but I see them as “density marketing”. Do it when you’re rolling at 4M.
Brand building is cool but your two truck brand doesn’t have the bandwidth. Go build your company, a culture and then drive brand.
Up to 4M blow your internet presence up. Aim for a thousand google reviews. Spend money on PPC and SEO. Pick up your phone when it rings. I use Scorpion and highly recommend.
I’ve seen people double marketing budget without enough CSRs in place to pickup. 🤔
Price yourself at a premium and use flat rate. I can honestly say I have no idea what my competitors charge.
I can also honestly say that their pricing is irrelevant to my pricing.
I eat their lunch all day long because we provide awesome service, our customers love us, we have hundreds of 5 star reviews and oh yeah - we pick up the phone.
Raise them annually.
Pay your techs a lot. If you aren’t actively looking for a path to get your techs earning a lot then you’ll lose good techs.
Here’s the deal. Techs can make a lot. They know they can make a lot. Your competitors advertise that they pay techs a lot.
They’ll either do it by working for you, a competitor or themselves.
Lots of ways to get here. I recommend an hourly + incentive approach. We regularly have techs topping $50/hour effective rate and if we didn’t we would lose them.
Becoming a manager is not a promotion. I see a lot of well meaning owners promoting their “best tech” to service/op manager. I am going to make an extreme statement and say that I have NEVER seen this be effective.
Not only did you just lose your best tech but you also hired someone who has probably never managed anyone to be your go-to manager.
This is too important of a position to promote someone who needs taught. Take your business seriously and hire an actual manager.
It doesn’t make sense, I don’t know why I did it and certainly don’t know why people smarter than me do it.
Go find a business system and follow it. There are a lot of them out there and it’s not just franchises.
It will shave years off your growth plan because it puts best practices into your biz early.
Find out your industry KPIs. This can be done through a business system, friends you know in the industry or asking Twitter.
If you don’t know what to aim for you’ll never hit it. I’ve SMB owners who dont know their avg ticket, GM or how they compare to industry.
Around 10 vehicles look into commercial leasing. It makes growth dramatically easier.
I can email our fleet company and have a vehicle on my lot, shelved, wrapped in two weeks. (Soon they’ll do inventory too!). You’re not in the car business.
Tackle it early. It’s a pain in the ass later. I recommend inventorying trucks and investing in a software to track it. Lock the room, track those costs.
Kill it if you can. You shouldn’t be in the inventory business.
Do it. Plus 401k and whatever else. Hard to grow a company if you don’t keep good people.
Hard to keep good people if you don’t give them a good place to work and make them not stress about their personal life.
Go buy a company doing 500k - 1M revenue and is super inefficient. More inefficient the better. Resist the urge to start something. You’ll spend a few years for no reason.
Pay whatever. I’m all about value but you’ll grow so fast it’s less relevant.
Hire a call center to handle overflow and hire a new CSR, maybe 2. I can almost guarantee the one that came with the biz is grumpy and not a good CSR. That phone needs answered no matter what and customers need to love that voice.
Put company on Servicetitan.
No. Housecall pro, jobber or any other discount CRM is not the same.
Yes. It is worth the price difference.
Yes. This decision is important and will hold you back later.
6% of revenue is a good start.
More from Startup
Every single time I set foot in every store/restaurant/place of business in Latin America. Only if they are not completely ignoring me from jump. Or following me bc obviously I came to carry out my plans to rob a store that is approximately 2 sq ft. big.
The part that’s also relevant is I’m oftentimes viewed as respectable-negro adjacent in the dominant culture imaginary. So what of those who are never identified as such? I always think about that. I get surveyed & harassed bad...yet and still there’s levels to the profiling.
When I have to do errands in Panama City, I make sure to apply makeup, perfume, an outfit with cleavage, or booty emphasis, heels and an “expensive” purse. There are STARK differences in the service and treatment I get when I do this vs. when I don’t. STARK. Pero, *STARK.*
LatinAmerica is psychotic in identifying who has money and who doesn’t based on how they are dressed, and how they imagine, carrying themselves. An “elegantly dressed” Black person will face less violence on an errand-run versus one who isn’t. This isn’t absolute so sit down plis
And then the times when I am dressed super-revealing. All of the help and care in the world from male workers. The same white mestizo men who would ordinarily follow me to “prevent theft” are happily helping me find things. Again, race, color, gender, class and more.
That \u201chere\u2019s a White customer, they\u2019re automatically more important\u2014despite the fact neither have you spent money yet so I can\u2019t even claim a paying customer is more important than a browsing customer\u2014so lemme interrupt helping you to go to them\u201d thing just happened to me again.
— \U0001f183\U0001f181\U0001f184\U0001f173\U0001f188 (@thetrudz) January 8, 2021
The part that’s also relevant is I’m oftentimes viewed as respectable-negro adjacent in the dominant culture imaginary. So what of those who are never identified as such? I always think about that. I get surveyed & harassed bad...yet and still there’s levels to the profiling.
When I have to do errands in Panama City, I make sure to apply makeup, perfume, an outfit with cleavage, or booty emphasis, heels and an “expensive” purse. There are STARK differences in the service and treatment I get when I do this vs. when I don’t. STARK. Pero, *STARK.*
LatinAmerica is psychotic in identifying who has money and who doesn’t based on how they are dressed, and how they imagine, carrying themselves. An “elegantly dressed” Black person will face less violence on an errand-run versus one who isn’t. This isn’t absolute so sit down plis
And then the times when I am dressed super-revealing. All of the help and care in the world from male workers. The same white mestizo men who would ordinarily follow me to “prevent theft” are happily helping me find things. Again, race, color, gender, class and more.
How to build a $100/day digital side hustle.
A dead simple guide to get you started:
Since 2020, I've:
• Built an online audience of 80k+
• Sold $150k+ in digital products
• Secured $50k+ in contracts
• Generated 100M+ views
It all helped me build a side hustle that allowed me to leave my 9-5.
If I had to start from scratch, here's what I would do:
1. Find your "niche-of-one"
This is found at the intersection of:
• What you're good at
• What is already popular
• What is currently profitable
The three ingredients of a profitable, money-making side hustle.
2. Start on Twitter
Why?
Twitter is the best audience building platform because:
• You can DM creators
• You can collect rapid data
• You can quickly execute on publishing
• You can mix short and long form content
(And we'll leverage the content later)
3. "Borrow" your core audience
Most people:
• Publish into the void
• Purchase shares & retweets
• Join expensive engagement groups
To grow in the beginning.
There's another way...
The "Waffle House Marketing Strategy"
Check it out:
A dead simple guide to get you started:
Since 2020, I've:
• Built an online audience of 80k+
• Sold $150k+ in digital products
• Secured $50k+ in contracts
• Generated 100M+ views
It all helped me build a side hustle that allowed me to leave my 9-5.
If I had to start from scratch, here's what I would do:
1. Find your "niche-of-one"
This is found at the intersection of:
• What you're good at
• What is already popular
• What is currently profitable
The three ingredients of a profitable, money-making side hustle.
2. Start on Twitter
Why?
Twitter is the best audience building platform because:
• You can DM creators
• You can collect rapid data
• You can quickly execute on publishing
• You can mix short and long form content
(And we'll leverage the content later)
3. "Borrow" your core audience
Most people:
• Publish into the void
• Purchase shares & retweets
• Join expensive engagement groups
To grow in the beginning.
There's another way...
The "Waffle House Marketing Strategy"
Check it out:
In January of 2022, I started Twitter at zero
— Jon Brosio (@jonbrosio) April 2, 2022
As of April 1, I'm currently at:
\u2022 435 followers
\u2022 $500+ a month
\u2022 183k monthly views
What's my secret?
The "Waffle House Marketing Strategy"
99% of people are unaware of this predictable and repeatable growth technique \U0001f447
